Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: All roads of personal growth lead to Rome
Since coming back from my study abroad semester in Rome, Italy, I have spent the last few months dwelling on the experience I had...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: Everything changes and nothing remains still
When I was little, I had extremely strict rules and expectations for my future: be a computer engineer like my father, start a nonprofit...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: Ask yourself, why not?
Every morning before middle school, my mom would say to me: “Be kind, be courageous and don’t mumble.” Much of my college experience has...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: A love letter to shared spaces
I grew up an only child, and it is safe to say that I came to college with a fear of shared spaces — communal bathrooms,...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to be OK with being alone
For the past 19 years, my biggest fear has always remained the same. The most typical fears — heights, the dark, small spaces and snakes...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to drink from a fire hydrant
My mom likes to say that sometimes life is like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant. I think this is her...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: From first-year roommates to dear friends
Culture editor Katie Moore and Opinions editor Shreya Srinivasan reflect on their college journey, starting as first-year roommates, staying in touch through the pandemic,...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to get used to men, or not?
I don’t think I realized that my seven years of all-girls school had impacted me in any formative or traumatic way until I stepped...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to know when to quit
I’m a master at the art of quitting. From baseball to Mandarin to fruitarianism, I’ve dedicated myself to every activity imaginable, only to quit...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to find peace in the unknown
College has unsurprisingly been the best experience of my life — but not in the clichéd partying-five-nights-a-week and regret-filled reckless whirlwind many get to experience....
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to write frantically and uncover joy in every corner of the collegiate newsroom
On one sun-drenched, jasmine-perfumed April day four years ago, I picked up my first copy of The Occidental from a campus newsstand on Admitted...
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned: How to learn from yourself
I often look back on my 18-year-old self as being a child. She was one in a lot of ways — naive, nervous, open-minded and idealistic. But...
